Autumn Tree Collage- Eloise Renouf style- Year 1-2

Overlapping Autumn Tree collage-Eloise Renouf inspired

Eloise Renouf is an artist, designer and illustrator from the UK whose designs adorn fabric and printed textiles for homewares and greeting cards. She designs all sorts of nature-inspired patterns: from flowers, trees, clouds, birds and leaves. Her overlapping trees use circles, ovals and roundish shapes or ’round cornered’ squares!

First the students made painted paper, using warm coloured paint to print and dab with brushes and texture wands onto warm coloured cover paper. While this was left to dry, they made their background- one class used paint to dab on the grass at the bottom of a piece of blue cover paper; the other class overlapped pieces of green tissue paper along the bottom third of the paper.

The next lesson, students used pre-cut templates mostly in the shape of ovals and round cornered squares to trace the shapes on the back of the painted paper, and cutting out, making sure to share and use other students scraps to get a variety of colours and patterns.

They then used permanent markers to draw a line up the middle of the shape for the tree trunk, then add various lines for branches, using Renouf designs for ideas.

Students then had to arrange their trees with the colours spread into a “back row” on the top half of the page, gluing down, then adding the trunk in the black marker to touch the top of the “ground”. The next row of trees were glued lower, slightly overlapping the back row, and with the various colours spread out.

The trunks drawn from those trees needed to be drawn down a little lower because they are closer!

This took 2 one hour lessons. We had discussions about shape, colour, line, overlapping etc.

My art lesson with Year 1 and 2 students was adapted from “First Grade landscapes” from a Cassie Stephens post.

Lesson plan to purchase with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities, linked curriculum and assessment rubric below.

AUD $2 for email download of Yr 1-2 Autumn Tree Mixed Media- Eloise Renouf Inspired lesson

Paul Klee Portrait- warm / cool colours (Art lesson for Prep – Yr1)

My Prep classes were learning about use of colour to show emotions and feelings, so this activity was a good follow on to learn about warm and cool colours.

Students learnt about what an ABSTRACT portrait is, in particular ‘Senecio’ 1922 by Paul Klee to inspire making a portrait in this style using warm OR cool colours. They used a variety of materials, including: crayon, oil pastel, water colour paints and chalk pastels using various techniques in the process.

First we looked at Paul Klee’s ‘Senecio’ (1922) and discussed the style and type of artwork, the colours, the feelings or emotions the colours might convey.

LESSON ACTIVITIES:

Students used a card circle (from Supermarket pizza packaging) and followed a guided drawing to add the joined eyes, line for the nose and mouth, and shoulders. These lines are traced over heavily with a black crayon. (no smudging!) They then drew lines on the face and body to make sections.

Oil pastels were used to colour the eyes. Water colour pallet paints were used to paint the sections and can be used with varying intensity- more water for a lighter colour value) We discussed that pink is also a warm colour because it is made using red (with white.)

For the background the students use chalk pastels on the side, then spreading and smudging the colour with their finger to fill the space.

Full lesson plan available with learning intention, success criteria, discussion questions, process and techniques. Self assessment rubric for students.

AUD $2 email download for this lesson plan

Spring Flowers Eric Carle Collage- Yr 1-2

This lesson is great at the beginning of Spring, and fits in nicely with the theme of growth and change. We read the Eric Carle book, “The Tiny Seed”, and discussed how he might have made his pictures.

Students had fun making painted paper, learning about texture, contrast, and warm and cool colours. They made their own petal template shape, cut and arranged them, following steps shown . Full lesson plan below.

AUD $2 email download of Spring Flower lesson

Lesson plan includes Learning intentions, Success Criteria, Victorian Curriculum links, student self assessment rubric and pictures of steps in the process.

Build a Burger Mixed Media Collage – Yr 1 / 2

I have seen many lessons and variations of this activity, but this idea came from ‘Kids Artists- Building Sandwiches’ here.

The Year 1 & 2 classes were working on a Food theme in their classrooms, and I usually tie in with their inquiry unit somehow. I introduced them to a couple of artists who made food related art. One was Claes Oldenburg, Swiss born American. They were fascinated by his larger than life food sculptures, especially the outdoor ones. For this project we looked at his soft sculptures- Floor Burger 1962, and Giant BLT (Bacon Lettuce Tomato) Sandwich 1963.

We discussed what they thought the sculptures were made of (materials & techniques) and watched a video of curators putting together the components for a BLT model for a Oldenburg exhibition.

Learning Intentions & Success Criteria for these lessons:

I am learning about Claes Oldenburg and his soft and hard sculptures of food.
I will learn about shape, variety and texture so I can represent various items of food for a burger / sandwich. I can use a variety of papers to make shapes to represent various foods to go in a “sandwich/burger”. I can overlap the foods when gluing down.

The idea was to “build” a tall sandwich / burger.

Each student started by choosing some painted paper to glue at the bottom of a long piece of paper (A2 cut lengthways) for a table cloth and then gluing a paper plate cut in half on top.

Next they cut two burger bun shape from ribbed cardboard and on of these is glued to the plate. They then start at the bottom gluing their “food” – painted paper, tissue paper coloured paper cut, scrunched or torn into a shape of sandwich fillings. They used a hole punch to make a yellow card look like swiss cheese. Tissue paper was great for lettuce and shaved ham! They needed overlap the food slightly and not glue down everything down flat, to help give the sandwich some form.

The Achievement Standards by the end of Year 2 (Victorian Curriculum) are: Students make artworks using different materials, techniques and processes to express their ideas, observations and imagination. Students describe artworks they make and view, including where and why artworks are made and viewed.

ASSESSMENT: To assess this activity I used the seesaw app which all student artwork (and sometimes work in progress) is photographed in their individual “folio”. Firstly I uploaded a photo of the Oldenburg BLT for students to add a recording of what they thought the item was, what it was made of and why it might have been made. After students completed their artwork they commented on their own piece, describing the components, techniques and different materials they used to represent the food.

Mondrian Map- Foundation Art Lesson

This art lesson is a good for Foundation students early in the year. It fits in well with themes of ‘Community’ or ‘My Neighbourhood’ when these Mondrian artworks can be interpreted like a map with the lines being streets and the coloured shapes being places on the map like houses. It introduces the primary colours and horizontal and vertical lines. Full lesson plan with Victorian Curriculum alignments below.

Mondrian Map_Foundation lesson plan Download